Trinity student Lyndsay Walsh has won the Thomas Clarkson Gold Medal in the Earth and Environmental Science Category. Walsh won the award at the Global Undergraduate Summit held in Dublin this week, and was among the prize winners for her paper on “Investigating how habitat influences bird abundance, diversity and feeding guilds in Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Mexico”.
The awards given out at the summit are divided into three categories, namely “Highly Commended”, “Regional Winners”, and “Global Winners”.
Walsh is a graduate of Zoology at Trinity and is currently pursuing a Masters in Development Practice, also at Trinity. Her research primarily covers the sustainable development of cities and climate change and its effects on lower income communities.
The Global Undergraduate Summit is an annual three day event that brings together students from over 45 countries to recognise excellence at undergraduate level across 25 different disciplines. The summit is attended by academics and this year’s keynote address was delivered by Dr Ebun Joseph, who is the Career Development Consultant at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).
The aim of the summit is to improve cultural awareness and understanding, while also providing an opportunity for students to network and share cross-disciplinary research. The theme of this year’s summit was Know Your Worth, Know Your Responsibility. This was to encouraged students and delegates to consider their research through the lens of sustainability, diversity and equality, and future finances.
Jim Barry, Chairman of the Undergraduate Awards and Brenda Cullen, Executive Director of The Undergraduate Awards wrote in a joint statement before the summit that this year “guests will come together to innovate in addressing problems faced around the world” as well as “celebrate the world’s finest undergraduate research and share in the development of solutions to issues of global importance”.
Lyndsay Walsh’s name was incorrectly spelled in an earlier version of this article. The article was updated at 8:35pm on 26 November, 2018.
